


'Tis the Season for Murder: A Christmas Caper

by KitsJay



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Christmas fic, Gen, casefic, so many terrible puns, so much crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsJay/pseuds/KitsJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mall Santa is murdered and Nick is on the case. The problem? Monroe seems to think it might be a real Santa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ho-Ho-Homicide

For some people, Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year. For detectives, it was the most stressful time. Calls came flooding in around Thanksgiving, when Aunt Bertha got into an argument with Uncle Jack again and pulled the carving knife out and before you knew it, there was a homicide call. As the date crept steadily closer to Christmas, the problems kept coming. Nick was profoundly grateful he wasn’t on patrol anymore, dealing with disturbances at Wal-Marts because “that bitch grabbed the last toy!” and two-bit crooks who knocked over Salvation Army greeters and stole their kettles full of loose change from generous shoppers because apparently no one had ever explained the meaning of Christmas to them. Or, Nick's personal favorite, the people who heard the Paul McCartney's "A Wonderful Christmas Time" one too many times and just snapped. He could appreciate the sentiment, if not the end result.

Even detectives get some weird ones around this time of year, though.

“Got any holiday shopping to do?” Hank asked, shrugging on his jacket. Nick looked up and automatically pulled his own jacket on and double-checked his holster.

“What have we got?”

“A mall Santa just got knifed in front of a crowd and no one saw a thing.”

Nick sighed as he followed Hank out of the station.

“So much for good will toward your fellow man.”

 

The mall was crowded and bustling, shoppers laden with packages pushing past to get to the next store, kiosk workers hawking their wares, and small children screaming because their harried mother wouldn’t let them ride the carousel. Thick fake pine garlands were strung up in graceful, draping swoops on the second floor balconies, and a gigantic Christmas tree shining with a million lights and ornaments gleamed in the middle. The two detectives made their way through the crowd until they reached the small corner that had been turned into Christmasland for the holidays, complete with plastic candy canes following a path of felt snow. They ducked under the yellow crime tape and glanced around. One of the beat officers was busy consoling a pretty woman dressed in an elf costume as she gestured frantically and wiped streaks of mascara onto her cheeks. Another was talking to a stern looking security guard who had an unhappy expression on his face.

In the middle of the scene was a gigantic pile of red velvet trimmed in white fur, the hint of curly white whiskers askew, and a pair of gold rimmed glasses lying discarded on the ground.

One of the CSU guys finished snapping the last of the pictures and waved to a patrolman standing nearby.

“Scene’s contained. The vic’s name was Stan A. Alcuse. The elf found the body. Me and Rodriguez will drop these,” he held up baggies sealed on top with red tape, “at evidence if you guys want to take over.”

“We got it,” Nick thanked him.

Hank was shaking his head at the crowd of gawkers and parents shielding their children from seeing Santa lying dead on the ground. Nick nudged him. “Elf or guard first?”

“Words I never thought I’d hear,” Hank shook his head as he walked toward the woman dressed as Santa’s little helper.

The woman had black hair hanging to her shoulders, brown eyes that flickered red and yellow with the reflections of the holiday lights, and tall, lanky limbs. She sat on a display block where an incongruously cheerful train happily tooted past as it wound its way through a small village. Her hat was lying discarded beside her and every time she shifted position, there was a faint sound of bells from her green shoes.

“Ma’am?” Hank asked gently. “I’m Detective Griffin and this is my partner, Detective Burkhardt. We’re here to ask you a few questions.”

She nodded, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. She smiled thinly, sharp teeth slightly yellow. Smoker, Nick thought automatically. “I’m Lisa. Lisa Gingrich.”

“Hi, Lisa,” Nick said warmly, crouching next to her. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“I told the other officer,” she gestured vaguely to where the two patrolmen had left. “I was just working my shift like normal and, and—"

Her face crumpled and Nick broke in. “Okay. That’s fine. What time did you get here?”

“I got to work at 2:00,” she said, twisting the small bells decorating her uniform between her hands. Her thin fingers smoothed the material down before repeating the process again. “Stan got there a little bit before me, but it takes him longer to get into his costume because of the beard and stuff.”

“Okay, that’s good. Did anything unusual happen while you were working?”

She shook her head, thinking about it. “No, not really. A mom was mad because the picture didn’t turn out the way she wanted—the kid was crying—but that actually happens a lot,” she said.

“What happened?”

“I told her our policy about retakes and she went away.” Lisa shrugged. “I mean, it really wasn’t a big deal.”

“What happened then?” Hank asked.

“Stan took his break, and I was entertaining the kids until he got back on, but he was taking a really long time. I went back to see what was wrong and he was lying on the floor. I thought,” she sniffled. “I thought he had a heart attack or something, but then I saw the blood everywhere.”

Her eyes welled up with tears again and she choked on a sob. “Were you and Stan friends?” he probed gently.

“Yeah. He was a really great guy, you know? I do this for the money, but Stan genuinely liked working with the kids. He volunteered every year, everyone knows him. He used to walk me to my car if it was dark out and he would give the Salvation Army bell ringer some money every day.”

“Thanks, Lisa,” Nick said. “You’ve been a great help. We're going to need to ask a few more questions. One of the officers here will take you down to the station."

She nodded miserably and was still crushing and smoothing her green uniform when they left her to talk to the security guard. He was a tall, slender man with hair gone salt-and-pepper with age, an aquiline nose, and thin lips. His eyes were beady and small in the soft folds of his face.

“Jim Ross,” he greeted them as they walked up. His uniform looked neat and pressed and clashed with the red and green decorations around him.

“Cop?” Nick hazarded a guess.

Jim smiled ruefully. “Yeah. Twenty years. Never saw anything like this, though.”

“Neither have we,” Hank said. “What happened?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much. I work Section A-3, from here to the food court,” he waved toward the center of the mall. “I usually wander over here as often as I can, just in case there’s any disturbances with parents. Sometimes seeing a security guard is enough to deter any from making any trouble.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“I heard Lisa scream and ran over here. She showed me the body and I cleared everyone out and called you guys. I checked to see if he was alive, but he was dead when I got there. That’s about all I know.”

“Was there anyone in the break room with him? Anything out of place?” Nick questioned.

The man shrugged. “Not that I could tell. You might talk to the manager. He has a key to the break room.”

“What’s his name?”

Jim pointed to a frazzled man currently pacing nervously up and down in front of the people. He had a beaky nose and a few strands of hair clinging desperately to the top of his head and glasses that were too big for his hawkish face. His suit was cheaply made, hanging loosely around his sparse frame, and his shoes were scuffed around the edges. “Corbin Spicer. I've also talked to the guys in the security room. We'll get any footage from the cameras we have for you."

“Thanks, man,” Hank said, clapping Jim on the shoulder. "We appreciate it."

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help.” He nodded to Mr. Spicer. “Good luck with him. You’re going to need it.”

Mr. Spicer suddenly paused in his pacing and looked at the two detectives, his blue eyes wide in his pale face. He clutched a cup to his chest. The features of his face morphed smoothly before Nick’s eyes, transforming his nose into a wide beak and the wool suit into a mangy collection of brown feathers. His hands turned into long talons, topped with wickedly sharp talons. Nick blinked and the image was gone, just a terrified middle-management official sipping nervously from a Starbucks cup again.

“I’ll take him,” Nick tapped Hank on the shoulder. “Why don’t you find out what the ME is saying?”

“You sure?” Hank raised an eyebrow at Mr. Spicer, who was back to his pacing. “These managerial types are always skittish.”

Nick smiled. “I’ll just remind him that not cooperating with police can be very bad for business.”

Hank laughed softly, waving a hand over his back as he headed to where the victim was lying. “Sure. Threaten him with a lawsuit from the city if you have to.”

Nick waited until Hank was out of earshot before walking over to Mr. Spicer, who stood still in his spot, eyes darting nervously from side-to-side. Nick kept his body language loose, not wanting the man to run and cause a panic. “Mr. Spicer?” he said when he got close. “I’m Nick Burkhardt with Portland PD. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

The man cleared his throat with a high, hawking sound. “I know who you are,” he said with a reedy voice. “I know what you are.”

Nick glanced around, but everyone’s attention was on the crime scene where the body, covered in a black morgue bag, was being rolled out on a stretcher. He leaned closer and lowered his voice.

“I’m not here for that," he told the man seriously. "I’m just here to investigate the death of Stan Alcuse. Can you tell me about him?”

The man’s hunched shoulders rose and fell. “He was a good worker, always showed up on time, never made any trouble. We had to let another Santa go for showing up drunk to work, but no one ever complained about Stan. The kids and parents loved him.”

“Were there any disturbances recently?”

“No, just the usual,” the man let out an eerie, high-pitched squawk that Nick realized with a start was a timid laugh. “Parents who don’t like the pictures, workers who quit without telling anyone.”

“Did he have any enemies? Anyone at all who didn’t like him or might have had a grudge?”

“No, nothing like that.” Mr. Spicer suddenly looked at him shrewdly. “You know the type.”

Nick let that one pass. “So nothing at all unusual.”

“No, nothing,” Mr. Spicer repeated. He took a gulp of his drink, something that was aromatic and tickled the edges of Nick’s nose enticingly. Mr. Spicer saw him looking and held the cup up. “Cinnamon tea. It helps calm me down.”

“Okay,” said Nick. “Was there anything at all happening today, any special events in the mall?”

“Just the charity fundraiser,” Mr. Spicer said. “We do it every year by the Christmas tree. It’s to help people who can’t afford Christmas presents. Always draws a big crowd this time of year, with the carolers and people in the mood to spend money and all.”

“Very commendable of you,” Nick said dryly. "The security guard said you have a key to the break room."

"Of course. I open it up every day at 10:00 and when the shifts change. It's locked during shift."

"Yet Mr. Alcuse got in?"

"He's a trusted employee," Mr. Spicer said stiffly, as if he could smell a liability lawsuit in the air. His small body quivered. "He's been working at this mall for as long as anyone can remember, even before I got here ten years ago. He's an older man and requested it so that he could rest during his shift. I saw no reason not to give him one."

Nick held up his hands. "I was just asking. No one's accusing you of anything here, Mr. Spicer. Can anyone go into the break room?"

"Only employees are supposed to go inside. I suppose someone could have slipped in, but the entrance is right over there." The stand was covered in red carpet, a fake golden chair sitting on top of it with sacks full of fake styrofoam packages surrounding it. It was backed up into a small changing area, where Nick could just make out the benches, lockers, and a tiny secondhand couch. "Someone would have seen if someone went in there."

"No other ways in?"

"Just a ventilation shaft, but no one could have gotten in there. It's too small for even a child to fit through."

Perfect, Nick thought with an inward sigh. The busiest time of year and no one saw a thing, a locked room, and a man stabbed to death who apparently had no enemies. He reined in his annoyance and gave a tight smile. “Let us know if you think of anything else.”

“That’s it?” Mr. Spicer blinked in confusion behind his glasses.

“That’s it for now,” Nick said.

"But when will you be done? This is one of our biggest draws--" Mr. Spicer began.

"We'll be done when we're done," Nick said firmly. God forbid a man's life take precedent over greed, he thought, inwardly rolling his eyes. He left the nervous Mr. Spicer to resume his pacing and joined Hank.

“Anything?”

“Our manager says that the shift is normally locked, but Mr. Alcuse had a key. Other than that, no one could have gotten in without someone seeing. We can check the camera footage, but who knows?" Nick shrugged. “What’d the ME say?”

“Just the usual,” Hank began.

“She’ll let us know after she does a full autopsy,” they said together, sharing a grin.

Nick shook his head. “Never fails.”

As they walked toward the exit past the gaudy store decorations and cheerful lights, Hank talking about his wife wanting him to hang up Christmas lights and Nick nodding absent-mindedly, he stole one last glance toward Mr. Spicer.

He caught two piercing blue eyes following him intently through the dispersing crowd of people, thin fingers still clutched around his cup.


	2. Be Good for Grimms' Sake!

The station was as busy as ever, patrol officers leading suspects in handcuffs and complainants to chairs to take down reports. There was a loudly arguing couple on one side of the station, a few kids who looked more scared than tough, and a woman noisily smacking her gum as she pointed indignantly at the beleaguered officer taking down notes and nodding miserably as the woman berated him. Nick dodged Oglesby, a younger officer, as he marched one man in handcuffs past who kept shouting that he knew his rights.

“Yeah, yeah,” Oglesby muttered as he walked past. “You also had the right to not steal that car, but you didn’t exercise that one, did you?”

Nick hid a grin as he walked straight into Wu, carrying an armful of records.

“Watch it!” he snapped before he saw who it was. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Don’t sound so glad to see me,” Nick said.

“I’ll try to restrain myself,” Wu replied impassively. He jerked his head toward the hallway, past the posters warning officers to drive safely and new procedure memos adorning the walls. “Harper called. Said she’s got something for you two.”

“Already?” Hank arched his eyebrows at Nick. “She’s getting better in her old age.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that.”

The morgue was never a pleasant place, and despite spending a good amount of time down there, Nick still felt a shiver every time he walked into the room, and not entirely from the cold. Unlike the warm wood banisters and dark walls of upstairs, the morgue was sterile concrete and coated in the pale green institutions could never fully escape from. Harper glanced up from her paperwork as they walked in.

“Got something for us, Doc?”

“Maybe,” she said, beckoning them over to the corpse. The sheet was tented over his body, bulging upward from the stomach.

“Looks like Stan was hitting the milk and cookies pretty hard,” Hank noted.

Doctor Harper sent him a wry look. “If the wound hadn’t done him it, I would have given him a year before a heart attack did him in. I haven’t done a full autopsy yet, but from a preliminary, I’d say that the murder weapon hit the subclavian artery and he bled out. It looks like there are some other wounds, but that was the one that killed him.”

“Murder weapon?” Nick looked up from his study of the body. “Anything to suggest it wasn’t a knife wound?”

“Again, boys, you’ll have to wait until I do the full autopsy, but if I were a betting woman, I’d say that it was something less conventional.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look here,” she gestured to a series of shallow wounds decorating the man’s shoulder. The edges looked like tattered rubber and blue in the fluorescent lighting. “See the tracks made? It almost looks like claw marks.”

“Or talons,” Nick said softly, remembering Spicer’s long, thin fingers.

She glanced up, a surprised look on her face. “Possibly. Though I doubt our victim was killed by a rogue bird.”

“Maybe Santa flew through a flock while he was on his sleigh,” Hank grinned. Nick and Doctor Harper gave him long-suffering looks and he held up his hands defensively. “What?”

“They would have to be some very unusual birds,” Doctor Harper said dryly. “The depth of the wound that killed him indicates a long weapon plunged directly into his shoulder. I also pulled this out, thought you may want to take a look.”

She handed over a specimen jar with small filings in it, barely larger than Nick’s little fingernail. “What are we looking at?” he asked, holding the jar up and peering inside. They were a dull yellow, with dustings of black around the edges.

“No idea. I’m sending some to the lab for analysis. But it’s definitely not any kind of knife shavings I’ve seen. I’d say the material is organic judging by the fungus that’s growing on it.”

Hank, who had taken the shavings from Nick and was looking at them intently, pulled back and returned it to Harper with a disgusted look on his face.

“Anything else you can tell us?”

Doctor Harper glanced over her chart and shook her head. “Nothing that I can think of, but I thought you should see those,” she nodded toward the jar, “as soon as possible.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Nick said.

She waved them away and they left her to her reports, climbing the long staircase to their desks.

“So what do you think we’re looking at?” Hank asked.

Nick shook his head slowly. “Not sure. I didn’t see anything like those shavings at the scene.” Spicer’s long, wickedly sharp talons flashed back to him and he shook it away.

“Man, I haven’t seen anything like that ever, except when my grandma cuts her toenails.”

“Thanks for that lovely image,” Wu said from behind them. They both glanced up to where he was standing, holding a folder in one of his hands. He dropped a thick file onto Nick’s keyboard. “I just came by to drop this off.”

“Thanks, Wu,” Nick said, grabbing the file and reading through it.

He waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I missed my calling as an errand boy.”

“You’d be great at it!” Hank shouted after him, ignoring the crude gesture he received in response. “What’s it say?”

“Mr. Stan A. Alcuse,” Nick read from the report. “Sixty-two years old, originally from Eugene. He owned a small carpentry business and apparently was an avid woodworker. He was married once, but his wife died three years ago from natural causes. No children. Get this: he’s volunteered as a Santa every year for the past thirty years and made toys in his spare time which he donated to local charities.”

“This guy was a saint,” Hank said with a whistle. “Who would want to kill him?”

“Apparently someone had a grudge.” Nick tossed the file to Hank to read and leaned back in his chair.

“Against people helping out orphans and rescuing kittens from trees? Yeah, I hate those guys, too.”

“Everyone has their secrets.”

“Even you?” Hank joked.

Nick looked down at his desk, the easy camaraderie fading under the weight of investigating yet another murder beyond the scope of normal police work. Lately it seemed every case connected back to some creature, something to do with the Grimm heritage that he had never known about. Sometimes he almost thought wistfully of the relatively straightforward, simple homicides he used to work, before all this was dropped into his lap, ones he could work with his partner and not have to hide things or make up stories in his reports about links in a chain that he shouldn't have. He had told Marie he couldn’t have ignored his Grimm ancestry even if he had wanted to, and lately he was starting to wonder if he hadn’t been more right than he had thought.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Even me.”

 

After work, he dropped by the location he had left Aunt Marie’s trailer. The trailer sat bathed in the soft light from the streetlamps and Nick stared at it for a moment, struck by the way it seemed so small and innocuous from the outside. It was amazing how something as mundane as a beat-up Airstream could contain so many secrets. He shook off the feeling and unlocked the door, stepping into the small space and checking it. Everything was where he had left it the last time. The leather-bound book full of sketches and delicate, curling handwriting was lying on the desk, waiting for him to search through it. He settled in and began flipping through the pages.

It took him over half an hour, and he almost missed it, but there on the left-hand page was a tiny sketch in the corner of the bird-like creature he had seen in Mr. Spicer.

“The Cinomolgus,” he read aloud from the short paragraph penned in beside the picture. “The Cinnamon Bird. Collects cinnamon for its nest and will defend its young against most enemies. Otherwise harmless. There have been no cases of unprovoked attacks.”

“That’s it?” he said, leaning back and shoving the book away. He scrubbed his face with his hands, suddenly feeling very tired. A quick look at his watch told him he had time to make another trip, one that would hopefully prove more useful. Locking up, he took one last glance at the trailer and got back into his car, heading to the one place he could always find help.

 

He had to knock five times before the door finally opened.

“You have _got_ to stop doing this,” Monroe said with a serious expression. He glanced at one of the clocks hanging on the wall. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Nick pushed his way past him and stood in the entryway. “I’m really sorry, but I need some information.”

Yawning widely, Monroe padded into the kitchen in his socks. “What else is new? I was just about to go to bed, so make it quick. What is it this week? A nachzehrer? Selkies? Pixies?”

“No, it’s—“ Nick stopped short and blinked. “Pixies?”

Monroe gave him a look that told him he was being an idiot, a look that Nick had learned early on in their relationship when it had shown up at least twice a conversation. “It’s time for all good, reformed blutbaden to be going beddie-byes, so spit it out.”

“Sorry,” Nick apologized. He pulled out the sketch he had made and handed it over, allowing Monroe to glance over it. “Recognize it?”

“A cinnamon bird? Man, I haven’t seen one of those in ages.”

“You’ve seen one?”

Monroe handed back the paper with a shrug. “Once in a while. They’re not as common as they used to be. For a while there, everyone thought they had died out completely, been hunted to extinction, probably by Grimms.” He gave Nick a pointed look, which Nick ignored. Though Monroe was gradually beginning to warm up to the late-night informational sessions, despite his churlish attitude whenever Nick arrived, there was still an underlying tension in the fact that, technically, according to all the rulebooks, they were supposed to be mortal enemies. It was a hard fact to reconcile over a beer and a football game, complaining about the weather.

“Are they dangerous?”

“Are you kidding me? They’re nervous little critters, really live up to their bird roots, y’know, flittering around and taking off at the first sign of trouble. They’re supposedly really vicious if you attack their chicks, but they’re so rare nowadays that a brood pair would be almost unheard of. Where’d you dig this one up?”

Nick sat heavily on a couch and resisted the urge to sink back into the plush furniture and fall asleep. “Case I’m working on,” he said with a sigh. “A mall Santa was murdered today and our ME said the wounds were irregular. The manager there is a Cinnamon bird. I thought…”

“No way, man, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Monroe shook his head. Nick opened his mouth to make a truly terrible pun when Monroe held up a finger. “Not one word or you don’t get any coffee.”

Nick’s mouth snapped shut. Monroe’s coffee really was good, about twenty times better than the cheap Maxwell he bought at home or worse, the sludge that managed to be thick as Mississippi mud and weak as rainwater that they had at the station. Monroe poured himself a cup of coffee and handed another one to Nick, who accepted the mug gratefully. “They’re definitely not your stone-cold murder types.”

“Unless he has young,” Nick said.

“Yeah, but like I said, what are the chances of that?”

Nick didn’t say anything, just sipped his coffee as he turned it over in his head. A thought hit him suddenly and he looked over at Monroe. “Where do they nest?”

“Up high, usually in very isolated locations. The parents would want it secure, but somewhere they could get to easily just in case. It would have to be warm, too, or else the eggs wouldn’t hatch.”

“Like a ventilation shaft?” Nick asked. It was definitely high enough, and though the mall itself was not very isolated, he doubted many maintenance workers crawled through the dusty ducts very often. It was too high for most people to reach without a ladder, but a bird could fly up there easily. And with the holiday season, and the cold, fast approaching and settling in, the mall’s heating had been working on overdrive to provide a comfortable shopping atmosphere for its customers. It would actually be perfect.

“That might work,” said Monroe with a thoughtful nod. “It’d be a tight squeeze, but I could see it.”

Nick made a mental note to check the blueprints of the mall’s ventilation system for the dimensions, and possibly talk with Juliette about whether a bird could fit into small spaces. He remembered finding a bird once wedged into a sewer drain barely big enough for it while walking from school one day, so it seemed plausible, though that didn’t explain why Mr. Spicer would have told him it was too small for anyone to go through. He must have known that Nick would check to see if cinnamon birds could fit in there.

“Doesn’t explain how Alcuse found it, though,” Nick thought out loud. “He couldn’t have just stumbled on it.”

“Alcuse?”

“Our vic,” Nick said absently, still fitting the pieces together in his head. “Guy was the next best thing to a saint. Hank and I spent all day going through bank records, legal papers, talking to people, and no one had anything bad to say about the guy.”

“Oh, he was a santa,” Monroe nodded sagely.

“Yeah, worked as a mall Santa for thirty years.”

“No,” Monroe said slowly, as if speaking to a small child, “I mean he was a santa.”

Nick quirked a questioning eyebrow at him. For a few years after college, he had woken up from dreams where he had walked into a classroom only to find there was an exam that he hadn’t studied for. Sometimes he thought coming into Grimm-hood so late was probably quite similar to those dreams, and he never had that feeling more acutely than while talking to Monroe.

“I swear, sometimes it’s like talking to a bar of marzipan,” Monroe said impatiently, compounding the feeling that Nick was hopelessly behind the curve. Monroe stuck out his hands in front of his face, miming a beard and a round, protruding stomach. “He was a santa. You know, the red cheeks, button nose, bowlful of jelly types? Though the ones I’ve met have always had more of a tub-full, if you know what I mean.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Nick said honestly.

“Don’t you have a manual for this kind of thing? Santas. Pretty friendly, supposed to spread good cheer and all that around, usually work as social workers or something altruistic during their off-months. Always smell like mistletoe and eggnog, too,” Monroe added, wrinkling his nose.

Nick stared at him, finally starting to make sense of what Monroe was saying.

He leaned forward, his empty cup of coffee nearly slipping from his grasp.

“Are you telling me,” he said, an undercurrent of excitement thrumming in his voice, “that Santa is _real_?”


	3. Gone Away is the Cinnamonbird

“No, I’m not saying Santa is real,” Monroe sniped. “I’m saying that there are creatures we call ‘santas’. Again, a bastardization by humans from _sinterklaas_. Seriously, do you guys just not know how to pronounce foreign words or what?”

“Back to Santa,” Nick said, waving him on. If he let Monroe get started on a rant about linguistics and proper pronunciation, he would be here all night without anything useful to show for it except a deeper understanding of umlauts and vowel syncopation—which, surprisingly, rarely showed up in any practical application.

“Fine, refuse to be educated. It’s people like you who—”

“Santa,” Nick repeated firmly.

Monroe sighed and stood, stretching his back as he grabbed Nick’s cup of coffee with his own to refill them. He tinkered with the machine and talked over the noise as it started gurgling. “There’s not much to say. You know how everyone asks, ‘But how can one guy deliver presents to the entire globe in one night!’, or if they’re smart, ‘How can one guy deliver presents to half the globe in one night!’?”

“Yeaaah,” Nick said.

“One guy can’t. But you get a whole set of creatures working on it, and boom, you have Christmas.”

“Do they have any enemies?” Nick said, aware of how absurd it sounded to his own ears. Who didn’t love Santa? Even if people didn’t believe in the fundamentals of the Christian Christmas story, or the saccharine atmosphere that pervaded during this time of year, not many would disagree with a jolly old guy who brought gifts to good little children—and he didn’t know any kid who didn’t eagerly await waking up on a cold Christmas morning to run down the stairs in their socks to find the presents waiting under the tree.

Monroe wrinkled his nose. “Not that I know of. Hell, even our family loved them. They’re just really nice creatures, period. I guess you could get them for a B&E charge, but that’d be pushing it.”

He paused and looked at Nick, who was trying very hard to keep his face as blank as possible.

It wasn’t working.

“Oh my god, you’re excited about this, aren’t you?” Monroe asked, his eyes wide. “You’re seriously a little kid.”

“I love Christmas,” Nick finally confessed. “The calls are awful, but you also get to read about the heartwarming stories, the smell of pine and fir, the decorations—”

“You probably have one of those inflatable Santas on your yard, don’t you?” Monroe accused.

“Shut up,” Nick said. He sighed and grabbed his mug of coffee, rolling it between his hands on the tablecloth. “If they’re really as nice as you say, then I can’t see one threatening the nest of our cinomolgus, which means I’m back to no viable suspect.”

“Unless it wasn’t thinking straight,” Monroe pointed out, blowing over his coffee to cool it. “Parents are rarely rational when it comes to the protection of their kids.”

“True,” Nick turned it over in his head. “I guess it’s time to bring in Mr. Spicer and see what’s really going on.”

“Spicer? Really?”

“Yeah,” Nick said ruefully as he shrugged on his jacket. “I know.”

“Whatever. Let me know how it goes.”

Nick paused with his hand on the doorknob, staring at Monroe shrewdly, who fidgeted under his gaze.

“What?”

“You’ve never asked me to let you know how a case will turn out.”

Monroe looked trapped. “I always assume you’ll show up and tell me anyway,” he tried.

Nick shook his head. “No, that’s not it. There’s something else…You love Christmas, too!” Nick said with a sudden burst of triumph.

“What?” Monroe made a scoffing noise. “You’ve been hitting the Grimm-sauce too hard. I’m too old for that stuff.”

“No, no,” Nick walked closer, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You want to know who did it. Something in you is getting really angry at the thought of someone killing a poor, defenseless santa whose only joy in life is making children happy—”

“Oh, shut up already! Yes, I love santas. When I was a kid, I begged my parents for a train set and they said it was too expensive. And then Christmas came and the guy just _knew_ somehow and it annoys me that someone went and killed one.” Monroe had a disgruntled expression on his face. He threw up his arms and stared at the ceiling. “Who does that? Who kills a _santa_?”

Nick was still grinning as he waved goodbye and left.

 

The next day dawned bright and cold and far too early for Nick, who had spent his night researching pages upon pages of information about santas in the trailer. The Grimms before him were apparently a suspicious lot, because everything hinted at something nefarious going on that they could never prove. From all appearances, they really were likeable creatures that spent their extended lifespan doing good. There were records of them being toymakers, tree growers, anything to do with the Christmas season, in particular. Some of the modern notes were more generously disposed to them, referencing several famous philanthropists, though most santas donated their time and resources to charities anonymously. Nick had copied a brief note about one natural enemy, but there was only a brief description next to a picture of a tall, pear-shaped humanoid with sickly eyes and crooked teeth. Even its name was a mystery, as the ink had smudged and he could only make out what looked like a “G” somewhere in the mess. Not for the first time, Nick thought about creating a Grimm database on a computer to cross-index the haphazardly put together book of resources.

With two cups of coffee warming his insides and his leather jacket wrapped around him, he made his way to the station.

“We’ve got a runner,” Hank greeted him as he walked in.

“Huh?”

“Mr. Spicer was picked up this morning trying to leave town.” Hank nodded toward the detainment room. “Without a formal charge, we’re just holding him as a person of interest, but so far he hasn’t said anything. I thought I’d wait for you to finally show up, see if we can shake something out of him.”

“Sorry to detain your fun,” Nick grinned, holding the door open for Hank to enter. Mr. Spicer sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs, drumming his fingers nervously on the surface of the table. There was a Starbucks cup in front of him and Nick could smell the cinnamon wafting from its open top. He looked up when they entered.

“My wife!” he squawked. “She’s coming down here. She’s a lawyer!”

“Good for her," Hank praised, pulling out a chair opposite and slouching in it. “We just want to ask you a few questions.”

“Why were you trying to leave town, Mr. Spicer?” Nick asked casually. Unlike cop shows they showed on television, ninety percent of confessions were usually found by a sympathetic face saying they just wanted to understand what happened. If Mr. Spicer was expecting a bad cop, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

Mr. Spicer’s fingers paused in their rhythmic tapping on the table. He buried his face in his hands. “I told you, it’s Christmas. We’re going to visit my wife’s family in Ohio, that’s it.”

“A little short notice for work, wasn’t it?” Hank asked.

“I called them up this morning. There’s been a bit of an emergency. It doesn’t look like her mother has that much longer to live and this might be her last Christmas.” Mr. Spicer fidgeted, which wasn’t a sign of guilt, as most people tended to be nervous when being held by the police for questioning in a homicide case. Nick watched him closely anyway.

“Okay, Mr. Spicer,” he said. “That’s fine, we just—”

There was a commotion outside, then Wu poked his head in through the gap in the door. “Got a woman here claiming to be his wife. She says she’s a lawyer.”

Hank and Nick exchanged looks. “Let her in,” Nick nodded.

Wu disappeared behind the door frame and they heard a murmured conversation before a striking woman walked in with confident strides. She had shiny amber hair that brushed the tips of her shoulders, pulled back part-way into a silver clip. Her face was clear, with the lightest brushes of make-up and the faint rose of lipstick. The suit she wore was professional and fitting, clearly tailored to highlight her slender limbs and the effect made her appear impossibly taller.

“Ava,” Mr. Spicer said, standing to embrace his wife.

“Darling,” she said, catching him in a hug. She glared at the two detectives with piercing blue eyes.

“I'm Ava Spicer, his wife and attorney. I’ll assume you weren’t questioning my client without his lawyer present?” she asked. Her voice, though sharp, had a melodious quality, and her accent sounded vaguely song-like. Nick surreptitiously watched her, surprised to see that her face momentarily flickered into the same features he had seen in Mr. Spicer the previous morning.

“We were asking what he was doing leaving town, Mrs. Spicer,” Nick said, still watching her carefully. “He verified that he understood his rights.”

Her voice was clipped. “Is be he being charged with anything?”

“No, Mrs. Spicer,” Hank said respectfully. “He’s being detained as a person of interest in a homicide case.”

“Ava,” Mr. Spicer said. She instantly turned, eyes turning warm. “Please, we have nothing to hide.”

“Alright, Corbin,” she said with a sigh. “Please continue with your questioning, detectives.”

“Thank you. We were asking why Mr. Spicer was attempting to leave town this morning.”

“He was coming to pick me up before we left to visit my mother in Ohio,” the lawyer said primly. She hesitated, then continued, “We don’t have much family left. My father died years ago and I have no siblings or other relatives. My mother has been very sick lately and we’re not—”

She broke off, one manicured hand covering her mouth. Mr. Spicer touched his hand to her shoulder, offering his silent support. She nodded in thanks and straightened her face again, though her voice still sounded rough. “It was unexpected, but she called and asked us to come. The doctors don’t think she has very long. We couldn’t very well say no.”

“No, I suppose not,” Hank said. He looked at Nick askance, arching one eyebrow, clearly asking if he thought they were on the level. Nick gave a subtle nod. They appeared devoted to each other, and he was starting to see the fierceness of a mother hen in the woman’s demeanor. They didn’t appear to be lying about anything so far, however, and their story about her mother fit in with what Monroe had told him about cinomolgi.

“Mrs. Spicer,” Nick began, “do you have any children?”

Her hands fluttered around her throat before settling, but the drape of her jacket turned briefly into feathers and the undershirt she wore looked more like the color markings of a bird than a blouse.

“No,” she said carefully. She was lying, Nick could tell. The brief show of her true form, the attempts to keep her voice calm and not let her fluster show all told the truth. As he watched, her blue eyes turned furious. “I don’t see what that has to do with this investigation.”

“Just curious,” Nick said with a tight smile. “We like to cover everything. Were you familiar with Mr. Stan A. Alcuse, Mrs. Spicer?”

She nodded, a trifle sad. “Yes. I had met him when picking Corbin up from work. He seemed like a very nice man. I’m sorry to hear about his passing.”

“Did you know him very well?”

“Just a conversation here and there, and of course, Corbin always spoke very highly of him.” She smiled wistfully. “He didn’t have much, but he offered to help us should we ever need it.”

There was another rap on the glass, and Nick felt a flicker of irritation for the second interruption of a session, but the annoyance fled when he saw that it was his Captain, standing in the small pane. When the man saw that he had their attention, he gestured for them to leave the room. They both stood and told the couple they would be right back.

Nick shut the door gently behind him and looked at the Captain with interest. “Sir?” he asked.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Captain Renard grimaced. “But I need an update.”

“They seem to be telling the truth. We can verify their story about visiting her mother and call to check his story about calling this morning to let his work know he wouldn’t be able to make it. Other than that, we really don’t have anything to hold him on, and no leads.”

“What about the woman who found the body?”

“Her background check was clean,” Hank shrugged. “We took her statement and released her pending our investigation.”

“Well, you might as well cut him loose,” Captain Renard sighed. He handed them another folder. “There’s been another Santa murdered.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need you boys to find who’s behind this quickly. The last thing we need is a media frenzy during this time of year about Santa being killed.” Captain Renard scrubbed his face with one hand and the two detectives winced sympathetically. As long as they did their jobs and found the murderer, they were fine, but Captain Renard had to deal with the Chief breathing down his neck about bad publicity.

“Will do, sir,” Hank promised.

They entered the room again. Mrs. Spicer looked up, one arm held around her husband’s shoulders. “Detectives, as I understand it, you are allowed to hold my husband for forty-eight hours before you must charge him or release him. Were you planning on holding him the full time?”

Nick shook his head. “No, Mrs. Spicer, you and your husband are free to go. Please leave the officer who escorted you in an address and phone number we can reach you at before you leave.”

She nodded crisply. “Understood.”

They left the couple to gather their things and headed out to the new crime scene. Nick pressed his face against the window-glass and exhaled, watching his breath steam up the window. He idly drew a sprig of holly on it.

Hank looked at him slyly, "Long night?"

Nick forced a grin. "Man, you have no idea."


	4. Slay Ride

There was a crowd of people standing at their scene, a modest-sized outdoor display in a park with over-sized presents wrapped in green foil packaging, plastic lollipops lining the path, and a truly garish display of lights on a small house that proudly proclaimed itself to be the home of Mr. And Mrs. Clause. Nick wondered if the real santas ever got tired of the merchandising or if they really were good-natured enough to enjoy it. He and Hank wound their way through the crowd to a wooden sleigh painted bright red with boughs of pine attached to the ends. Two bored-looking reindeer, plump from grain and hay, milled nearby in a small paddock, still wearing their harnesses adorned with silver bells.

The patrolman looked up, his expression changing from stressed to relief when they flashed their badges at him.

“Thank God,” he said. “I can’t handle this. It’s your baby now, detectives.”

“Thanks, Pinshaw,” Nick said, allowing the man to slip past. Two EMTs stood nearby, uneasily shifting from foot to foot. Nick recognized one of them and gave the woman a smile. “Hey, Sheryl.”

“Hey, Nick,” she replied. She was a short, slightly overweight woman, with red cheeks and usually had a pretty smile that was absent now. Her face was white and drawn, bags under her eyes. She nodded to the sleigh. “He’s in there. We didn’t touch the body—it was obvious he’s been dead for a while.”

He nodded and glanced over to where she was gesturing. Draped along the sleigh, his limbs contorted in an unnatural pose brought on by rigor mortis and the awkward position, was the second victim. He was dressed in the traditional Santa outfit, a plush red costume trimmed in white fur, shiny black leather boots complete with silver buckle, and a bag of presents spilling onto the ground below. His hat was lying discarded next to the sleigh; the red against the frozen ground seemed inappropriate somehow, and Nick pushed aside a sudden wave of sadness to examine the scene.

The CSU guys were still busily snapping photographs from all angles of the scene, capturing every nuance from fifty yards away to the minutiae of the sleigh. Nick sighed and scrubbed his face with his hand.

“What have we got?” he asked the coroner.

The man shrugged. “Harper can tell you more, but all I can say is that the guy’s been dead for a while.”

Nick looked up at Hank. “What time did you say you picked up Mr. Spicer?”

“Around 5:30 this morning,” Hank said, following his logic quickly. They both looked at the coroner, who shook his head.

“Negative, detectives. I’d say this guy was killed around 8:00 this morning.”

“We got an ID?”

“Kirk Lingers,” a man standing nearby piped up. He was tall and skeletal, almost bony in aspect, and his cheeks were sunken in his too-thin face. He had on a pair of black slacks, too baggy for his frame, and a white button-up shirt underneath a thick parka. His scrawny neck was entirely covered with a long blue and white scarf whose ends trailed to somewhere around his waist. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets to fend off the cold seeping in and chilling everyone’s bones.

“And you are?” Hank asked.

“I’m the one who found the body. I’m also Mr. Lingers’s boss. Harold Hu,” the man held out a gloved hand. The detectives shook it dutifully. “I came by to open the display this afternoon and found him like that, just lying there.” He stared at the body in shock for a moment before turning away, a pained expression written on his face. “Is there any way that you could cover him up? There are children present.”

Nick glanced over his shoulder, where there was another crowd of onlookers, some of whom were parents with their children, hugging them and reassuring them as they cried pitifully. He sighed. “We’ll work as quickly as we can, Mr. Hu. Can you tell us about Mr. Lingers?”

“He’s been working with us for eight years now,” Mr. Hu told them. “He was such a nice man, loved the kids… I just don’t understand how anyone could do this. And so close to Christmas!”

“Neither do we,” Hank said grimly, “but we’re working to find out.”

“Are you the only one who has access to this area?” Nick asked him.

“No, of course not. This is an open display. There are chain link fences around the area, of course, but honestly they don’t do much to deter people. Just last week we had to clean off graffiti left by teenagers on the house.” The man smiled sadly. “Mr. Lingers actually volunteered to help us with the work, free of charge.”

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Hu. We’re going to need to take you to the station to get your statement and ask a few more questions. The officers will give you a ride if you need one.”

“Of course.” Mr. Hu hesitated. “Detectives, I don’t know if you can answer this, but is this related to the other man who was murdered? The one in the mall?”

“Where did you hear about that?” Hank asked neutrally.

“The news, of course,” the thin man blinked. “It was all over it. I just wondered. It seemed such an odd coincidence…”

“We really can’t release any information on either case,” Nick said firmly. “But we are looking for the person responsible.”

“Of course, of course,” Mr. Hu nodded. He mopped his face with the edge of his scarf and repeated in a small voice, “I just don’t understand who could do such a thing.”

“Neither do I,” Hank told Nick as they walked toward the car. “Both good guys who spent all their time volunteering their time and working for free? Maybe someone out there just really hates the Christmas spirit.”

“We’re missing something,” Nick said as he got into the car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Hank paused in buckling his seatbelt.

“Pray tell, oh wise one,” Hank said dryly.

Nick ignored him. “There’s a connection here.” He started the car, listening to the ignition purr before pulling out into traffic on the busy street. "Something beyond the fact they were both santas."

Holiday Garland Animated

 

They found Ms. Gingrich waiting for them at the front desk, readjusting the sash on her coat and telling Wu that they had called. Nick intervened before Wu could say something cutting.

“Hi, Ms. Gingrich. Sorry to bring you down here again, but we had a few follow-up questions.”

She followed them to their desk and gave a timid smile, placing her purse on the floor beside her and crossing her legs demurely. “It’s no problem,” she said. “Honestly, I was in the neighborhood anyway.”

“All the way up here?” Hank sounded surprised. The police station, meant to be conveniently located in the heart of Portland—and probably had been at some point, early on—had drifted farther and farther away from the metropolitan area and was now ensconced to the north of the busiest parts of the city. It was a frequent complaint for officers who had to make the drive every day from the more residential areas.

She shrugged, a tiny motion of her shoulders underneath an olive green peacoat. The hems of the sleeves were roughly stitched, like she had sewn them herself. “I quit my job at the mall. I just couldn’t—it wasn’t the same, not now,” she shakily. Her face scrunched up as she added, “And the new Santa they hired is kind of handsy with the help, if you know what I mean.”

“Ah,” Nick said knowingly. “Well, we were just wondering if Mr. Alcuse had ever talked about anybody, maybe mentioned the name of a friend, anything like that?”

“None that I can think of,” she said, tilting her head. Her hair fell in soft waves that brushed the tops of her shoulders. “I mean, he was a really friendly guy, everybody knew him. He probably mentioned a lot of people, but nobody I can think of off-hand.”

Nick could hear Hank trying not to sigh; witnesses were notoriously unreliable or unhelpful, and the ones who weren’t usually were lying. It was a no-win situation interviewing them, but all part of the job. He kept the sympathetic expression firmly affixed to his face, fighting back his frustration.

“Anything at all, Ms. Gingrich. Please try to remember.”

“I really am, but the only thing that really stands out was the Portland Preservation Service.”

“The what?”

“It was some kind of charity for a nature preserve they were thinking about building in the woods near Forest Park. He was crazy about it, always talking about conservation. He went out there a few weeks ago with a few other volunteers to look over the land.” She had a guilty expression on her face, as if she was ashamed of what she was saying. “I gave him five dollars for his collection just to get him to stop talking about it.”

“That’s very helpful, Ms. Gingrich,” Nick said. “Did he mention the names of any other volunteers?”

“Um, there was one… I mean, I don’t know that he was a friend, he was just a guy he worked with on it. What was his name?”

Hank and Nick waited for her to remember, resisting the urge to prompt her—that way led to false identifications all around, as all of their detective class trainers had taken great pains to stress to them. It was why police portraitures were often so unreliable. She sighed in frustration and leaned down to search through her purse, pulling out a package of toothpicks. At the detectives’ questioning look, she held them up for inspection.

“Sorry. I’m trying to quit smoking. Sometimes it helps me think better if I can just have something and that nicotine gum tastes awful,” she said, chewing on the end of the toothpick. After a few seconds of mangling the wooden stick, she offered, “Craig something? He had a weird last name, started with an L, I think. Linkers? Craig Linkers?”

“Kirk Lingers, maybe?” Hank broke in. It was close enough that a little prompting wouldn’t hurt, but Nick still shot him a look. Hank shrugged in response; it was all they had to go on, and the Captain was itching for a lead on a case that thus far had only offered up more questions everywhere they looked. Any link beyond the made-for-late-night-news Santa connection would be helpful.

Lisa shrugged helplessly. “Maybe? It was a while ago. I’m sorry I can’t help you out more.”

“You did fine, Lisa,” Hank reassured her, leading her to the front desk. Nick trailed behind, idly listening to Hank and Lisa make small talk as they walked down the long hallway. Hank mentioned something about the possibility of snow the weathermen were claiming for this weekend. Nick softly began humming, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” underneath his breath.

“Please stop singing that,” Lisa snapped. Hank and Nick looked at her in surprise. She shook her head, brushing back her hair and looking frazzled and apologetic. “Sorry. It’s just I’m not really in the Christmas spirit after all this.”

“We understand,” Hank said. “The officer here will show you out and take down any information.”

“Thank you,” she said, already filling out the forms Wu handed to her.

As they walked back to their desks, Hank let out a low whistle. “That was kind of weird.”

“But understandable. Besides, I used to work in retail,” Nick said, thinking back to his college days, when he had worked at a Home Depot to make ends meet. He grimaced. “You try hearing the same Christmas songs for eight hours a day and not snap. And she probably couldn’t even duck into a store-room to get away from it when she wanted.”

“Still,” Hank commented dubiously.

Nick grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Spoken like someone who has never had to work retail.”

“Hey, can I help if it I was born rich _and_ handsome?” Hank called to his back.

"No, but it would help if you stopped announcing it," Wu said, walking past. "Harper's waiting for you. Said she's got something."

"Thanks, Wu."

They headed down to the morgue. “Detectives,” Doctor Harper greeted them as they walked in.

 

"What have you got for us, Doc?" Hank asked, eyeing the room with distaste. Despite it being part of the job, nobody enjoyed hanging around with dead bodies.

 

The doctor beckoned for them to follow her, where she pulled back the sheet to reveal the pale, cold body of the late Mr. Lingers. His eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, clouded over with death.

 

"I haven't done a full autopsy on him yet, but I did find traces of the same substance I found in your other Santa. Lab analysis came back on it this morning, confirming that it was organic. Keratin, to be precise."

 

"Fingernails?" Hank asked with some surprise.

 

"Very good," Dr. Harper praised. "Someone remembers their seventh grade biology class."

 

Nick hid his grin as she continued, "It also appears in pretty much every animal with claws, tusks, horns... Rhino's horns are almost entirely made out of keratin."

 

"The more you know," Nick quipped. "Could it have been human?"

 

"No way to really tell," Dr. Harper shook her head. "The lab also ran an analysis on the fungus growing on it, but the results were inconclusive. It looks similar in make-up to certain nail fungi, but nothing I've seen before."

 

"Have you gotten a chance to do a full autopsy on the first vic?"

 

Dr. Harper smiled. "It's your lucky day, boys. It's been pretty slow around here, so I pushed it ahead. No drugs or alcohol in his system and my autopsy confirmed my original guess of cause of death." She pointed with her pen to the gashes in his shoulder, one of them deeper than the rest. "Whatever it was sliced the subclavian artery, as I suspected. Kind of unusual, though."

 

Nick looked up at that. "Why's that?"

 

"It takes a lot of force to get past the thoracic inlet. The only time I've seen injuries like this one was when I was doing my residency and car accident victims came in. This shows no damage to the outlying areas, though. My guess? You're looking for a very sharp, curved weapon, one that could have penetrated above the clavicle and sunk in."

 

Hank frowned. "Like a sickle?"

 

"Smaller, more direct, but shaped similarly, yes."

 

"Was there anything else?"

 

Dr. Harper flipped through her chart, skimming the pages. "Nothing relevant that I could see. He was in pretty good health, surprisingly. The only thing that I could find was some damage to his lungs."

 

"What kind of damage?" Nick asked.

 

"Consistent with COPD," Dr. Harper said. "Loss of elasticity in the lung tissue, signs of excess sputum production... It wouldn't have surprised me if he got tired after dealing with kids all day. The lack of circulation would have worn him out quickly, especially if he was doing anything physical, like going up stairs or exercising."

 

"Which explains why he asked Mr. Spicer for the break-room key," Nick said to Hank. They nodded to Dr. Harper. "Thanks, Doc."

 

"No problem," she waved them out. "Do me a favor and catch this guy. I don't want to explain to my kids why Santa died."


	5. It Came Upon a Midnight Fear

"Again?" Monroe said, leaning on the door frame. The air outside seeped into his warm home, cold and dreary, and reminding him a lot of the same depressing sight of Nick standing huddled against the wind in his leather jacket, a tired smile on his face, waiting for an invitation. He sighed heavily and let the man in, ignoring the grateful look Nick gave him at entering the cozy, thankfully heated space. "What do you want this time?"

"I need help."

Monroe snorted. "Every time I tell you that, you ignore me. Congratulations, admitting you have a problem is the first step."

True to form, Nick ignored him entirely and continued in that dogged way of his. "I need to contact a santa. I was wondering if you knew any."

"You can always cruise the malls," Monroe said. "I'm sure one or two of those guys are the real deal."

"Right," Nick rolled his eyes, "And tell them what? 'Hi, I was just wondering if you're this supposedly mythical creature who spreads good cheer around and why are you putting me in this straight jacket?' They'd lock me up faster than you could say 'Merry Christmas'."

"Which would solve my problem, at least," Monroe muttered. He grabbed two beers from the fridge, handing one to Nick and popping the cap on his own to take a long drink. "Listen, I don't know any personally, but..."

He hesitated.

"What?" Nick asked, feeling a little desperate. "Anything at all would be helpful about now."

"I do know of a way to contact one," Monroe muttered. "But you're not going to like it."

"You never know."

"Fine, _I'm_ not going to like it."

"What do we need?" Nick asked. That determined look was in his eyes, the one that always ended up with Monroe being dragged around the woods and being attacked by various things he wanted nothing to do with, and the same look that somehow always ended with Monroe saying, 'yes'.

He sighed. "Let's go to the store."

 

"You've got to be kidding me," Nick said, staring at the array of mixing bowls and baking ingredients spread out over the tiny island in Monroe's kitchen. The oven was preheating behind him, letting out a tiny beep to let them know it was ready. Monroe rummaged in his pantry and unearthed a half empty can of baking powder, depositing it with the rest of the ingredients.

"Milk and cookies, man, they can't resist them."

"I swear you're making this up," Nick accused him even as he carefully measured out a cup of sugar into one of the larger bowls. Monroe tapped out a quarter-teaspoon of baking soda across from him.

"You're the one who asked," Monroe shot back. He shoved Nick out of the way and snatched up the measuring cup. "Who taught you how to bake?"

"Um, no one?"

"Well, that's obvious," Monroe sniped. "Listen, make yourself useful and spray the pans down."

After a few moments of Monroe embracing his inner cook, and Nick watching amusedly while doing the grunt labor of baking cookies, they had two pans of perfectly rounded chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. It beeped at them loudly and they pulled them out, letting them cool on wire racks before stacking them in a neat arrangement on a serving plate.

"Pour a glass of milk," he ordered Nick, who obeyed. Monroe had a tree up in the living room, decorated with tiny white lights, a golden tinsel garland woven around the branches, and delicate green ornaments hanging from the boughs. A white-lit star stood proudly on the uppermost branch.

"Coffee table," Monroe said, depositing the plate of warm, freshly made cookies in front of him and slipping a coaster underneath the glass of milk before Nick could deposit it directly on the wood surface.

"What next?" Nick asked, glancing around. Monroe shrugged, leaning back onto his comfortable couch and tilting his head back.

"Next, we wait."

"Now I know you're making things up," Nick said, eyeing the comfortable spot next to Monroe anyway. He had been working non-stop on this case for the past few days, morning and days at the station interviewing witnesses, taking statements, and waiting on reports from the lab, and at night, going home to a trailer to dig through the musty old tomes to see what he could find.

With an impatient sigh, Monroe replied without opening his eyes. "Listen, you know those old songs about Santa not coming when you're awake? They're true. They're kind of sneaky little bastards. So we fall asleep on the couch and with any luck, one of them will take the bait."

"Fall asleep?" Nick stared at him. "I've got work to be doing, I can't just hang around, _sleeping_ , while people are getting killed."

"I told you that you weren't going to like it." Monroe shifted to a more comfortable position. “Loosen up. Tell me about your Christmases as a kid.”

Nick gingerly sat down on the couch, sighing inwardly. He was not one of those people who constantly fretted over things or brought work home with him, but while he was on a case, everything else fell by the wayside. It felt wrong to be relaxing on the couch with his friend like it was the weekend and he had nothing else planned, even if it was for the good of the investigation. Of course, he thought ruefully, how many times could he honestly say that he had baked cookies in the pursuit of justice?

“They were great,” he said with a soft smile, fondly remembering his childhood Christmases. “My mom always wore dresses and fixed her hair every other day, but on Christmas morning, she would just wear her pajama pants and an old T-shirt.” Her shirt always smelled like her perfume, he remembered, and he would run up to her, only six or seven years old, and stand on his tip-toes to hug her waist and breathe in that sweet scent. “My dad would spend ages trying to get the camera to work and would get frustrated by it and try not to cuss in front of me, and Mom and I laughed at him every time until he gave up.”

He remembered his mom's voice, a sweet, melodic alto, singing constantly as she washed dishes or humming lowly as she hung glass ornaments that caught the lights and tossed them back on the walls in a shower of silver, red, and gold. She would make up songs, he remembered, silly little lyrics with made-up words and sing them to him, laughing as she did. He smiled wistfully at the thought. He only remembered a few of them now, time fading the memories until they were jumbled-up between sounds and grainy photographs and the stories Aunt Marie had told him about them.

Monroe was looking at him strangely. “I thought your parents died.”

“They did, when I was ten,” Nick said. He almost added “in a car crash”, before remembering Aunt Marie’s words the night she was attacked. Even their deaths were clouded in mystery now. His smile faltered. “After that, it wasn’t the same, but Aunt Marie always tried her best to make Christmas special for me. I think she was trying to make it up to me.”

They carefully didn’t talk about what she was making up to him; when he was younger, he thought it was his parents dying, but now he wondered if it wasn’t guilt over knowing that he would be the next in line to inherit this curse.

“What were those like?”

“Aunt Marie and I would go pick out a tree,” Nick said. He laughed, thinking back. “It became a running joke that somehow we always picked the worst weather to go out in. We’d both be freezing and arguing over which tree to get. She liked the spruce trees, and I like firs. She always let me win, though. And we’d wake up, and there’d be candy canes in the stockings and chocolate coins and butter cookies. She always was kind of strict about that, but for one night a year, I got to eat myself sick on sweets.”

“It sounds nice,” Monroe said.

Nick smiled and tilted his head to look at him, resting his cheek against his arm lying on the back of the couch. “Yeah. It really was.” He reached out a socked foot and nudged Monroe with it. “How about you?”

“Oh, the usual. Big family, so everyone would come over and there’d be screaming and yelling and laughing. My Uncle James would get drunk off the eggnog and start singing, ‘Deck the Halls’ at the top of his lungs, Mom would yell at him to knock that racket off, and then Dad would join in on the chorus just to annoy her. She’d try to keep up the pretense, but after a while, she’d start laughing and singing along, too. My sister and I shook our presents all the time, so Mom finally started wrapping them in different paper and wouldn’t tell us which was whose until it came time to open them.”

“Sounds like fun,” Nick commented. He sometimes wondered what it would have been like to grow up with siblings, or, when he was younger and angrier, parents; hearing people talk about them so nonchalantly used to roil something bitter inside him, knowing what they were taking for granted. Nowadays it just made him wistful, maybe a shade envious.

“It really is. I kind of miss being a kid, you know?” Monroe said in a hushed voice. There was the faint crackle of the fire he had lit, the sound of shifting logs, and the dim sound of the refrigerator motor humming from inside the kitchen. It was comfortably warm in the living room, the lights mostly out except for the sliver from the entryway and, if Nick craned his neck, he could just see the colorful pattern pouring in from the stained glass window in the door. It shivered on the floor. “It was so much simpler back then. They respect my choice not to—well, do what I used to do, but it’s like I’m disappointing them every time I visit them now. You can just tell.”

“But they still love you,” Nick pointed out.

“Yeah, I guess they kind of have to. Family is family and all.” Monroe shifted uncomfortably before giving Nick a guilty look. “Geez, sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay,” Nick said, pushing down the old hurt that welled up inside him. “I’ve had a long time to get used to it.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Really,” Nick forced a smile. “It’s fine.”

“Right,” Monroe said uncertainly.

They sat in silence after that, lost in memories, staring at the fire and the shadows dancing across the floor, the embers sparking up and flickering in a burst of light before falling to the hearth in ashes. The peace finally lulled them away, and they both fell asleep on the couch, staring at the dying flames.

 

The sound of someone quietly tip-toeing stirred Nick, a light sleeper by habit, from sleep. Beside him, he could hear Monroe grumbling as he reluctantly woke up. Nick had to blink several times, wondering if he were still asleep and dreaming. In front of him stood a diminutive figure, about 5’8”, dressed in a red and green plaid flannel shirt and jeans, downing the glass of milk that had been on the coffee table.

“Who are you?” Nick asked.

The intruder looked up. He had startlingly blue eyes, a rounded nose, and a thick mustache that blended into a short, neatly trimmed beard. “I heard one of you was lookin’ for us,” the man said in a surprisingly deep voice. “You’re the Grimm, right?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, sitting upright and rubbing the remnants of his nap out of his eyes. He tried to collect his thoughts. “I needed to talk to… um, one of you.”

“A santa, you mean?” the man said gruffly. “Well, here I am. Shoot, Grimm.”

“Aren’t you guys usually nicer?” Monroe asked.

The man huffed. “You try bein’ nice when someone’s out there hunting you.”

Nick could feel Monroe’s gaze burning on him. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“So you know,” Nick said, cutting that argument off at the pass. “You’ve heard about the others?”

“Stan and Kirk? Yeah, s’all around the grapevine, y’know? Those two get bumped off and suddenly everybody’s lookin’ over their shoulders.” He shook his head sadly. “Just ain’t gonna be Christmas this year.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody wants to do the rounds, not with some looney going around killin’ people. Look, we live to bring cheer and all that jazz, but everybody’s lyin’ low till this thing blows over.”

“Have you heard anything else? Did Stan and Kirk know each other?”

“You kiddin’ me? They was best buds, always pallin’ around together. Damn shame, them goin’ like this.”

“Do you know who’s behind it? Any ideas?” Nick asked.

The man shifted uncomfortably and held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Don’t look at me, I’m as scared as the rest of us. Listen, kid, I’d love to help ya, but nobody’s talkin’ right now, includin’ me.”

“Please, help me catch this guy,” Nick said, allowing some of his desperation to creep into his voice.

The santa scratched his nose and looked uncomfortable. “Look, all’s I can tell ya is that Stan pulled a few strings he shouldn’t’ve. He was on his way out anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Monroe interrupted. “I thought you guys were the closest to immortal it got.”

“Yeah, pretty much, ‘cept that we get a deal, right? We can grant three miracles, but they each take somethin’ from us. The third one takes your life.”

“And Stan granted a third miracle,” Nick guessed.

“Yeah, Stan… he was a good guy, but a soft touch, if you ask me,” the man shifted uncomfortably. “Look where it got him.”

“What do you mean by miracle?”

“You know, a miracle. Somethin’ bigger than a toy or a new puppy. Somethin’ that changes people’s lives. That’s why they’re limited—if we went around doin’ those all the time, they wouldn’t be miracles no more. And it's got to have a sacrifice. Most people, they shell out $15 on a present, and that's a kind of sacrifice, but miracles take more than money or effort. They gotta take a part of you with it.”

“And Stan granted one. How about Lingers?”

“Nah, he just helped Stan out, since he wasn’t gonna be around to see how it turned out.”

“Do you know what he did?”

The man glanced over his shoulder as if he expected someone to be there. He was nervous, almost jumpy, constantly shifting his gaze, and Nick noticed he had his back against the fireplace, long grown cold, so that he could see the entire room. “I ain’t sayin’. I like my heart still beatin’.”

“Please, Mr…” Nick trailed off.

“Name’s Karl. Karl Tineas.”

“Mr. Tineas,” Nick said. “I can protect you, I just need—”

“Kid,” Karl said sadly, shaking his head. “Not that I don’t know you’re good and all, but nobody’s that good.”

“Please—”

“Sorry, but this ain’t my fight. I gotta take up Stan’s route anyway. I can’t take any risks, what with Christmas bein’ in a week and all.” He hesitated before looking at Nick. “Be careful, kid. I kind of like you. You ain’t like the rest. And ‘cause of that, I’m gonna tell you this: stay away from the woods. It ain’t healthy for anyone right now.”

With that, he put his finger to one side of his nose and seemed to disappear up the chimney.

Nick turned to Monroe, who jumped up from the couch and shook his head furiously.

“No, no, you cannot be serious,” Monroe said. “He just said to stay away from the woods.”

“How did you know that’s what I was going to say?” Nick asked.

Monroe rolled his eyes. “Easy, I thought to myself, ‘Self, what’s the stupidest thing we could possibly do right now?’ and the answer just came to me.”

“Please, Monroe,” Nick pleaded. “You heard him. Christmas is in trouble.”

Monroe stared at him, then started yanking on his jacket, muttering the entire time. “We’ve got to save Christmas, Monroe! That’s just low, like I can really say no to that."

Nick grinned, pulling his own jacket off the rack and grabbing his keys.

 

“ ‘The woods are lovely, dark, and deep’,” Monroe quoted glumly from the passenger seat. “Emphasis on the ‘dark’ part.”

Looking out the window at the weald of firs and hemlock packed into a dense tangle, Nick was forced to agree. He unbuckled his seat belt and dug out his flashlight from the backseat, hitting it a few times before the bulb flickered uncertainly before flaring into full light. It cast a beam into the night, somehow being swallowed up by the thick face of the woods. He checked his map again and felt Monroe walk up to peer over his shoulder.

“This is the place. It’s about a mile south of here.” he said, looking back into the woods. “Ready?"

“No,” Monroe said shortly, but followed Nick anyway.

The area was underdeveloped, quiet and undisturbed by joggers or hikers. Even the people who maintained it seemed to have abandoned this patch, the copses of trees encroaching further and further onto the trails until they were indistinguishable from the rest of the forest. During the day, it was probably beautiful, the bracken and holly next to the majestic cedars and growing complacently over the fallen logs. At night, with the moon barely penetrating the dense canopy, it seemed spooky. There was the faint rustlings of nocturnal animals brushing through the undergrowth, a few nightbirds issuing lonely songs that went unanswered, and a musty smell of old rain and dying leaves. Even Monroe’s breathing behind him sounded uncertain, foreign and intrusive in the still. Nick felt his shoulders tense and he brushed one hand reassuringly across the butt of his gun.

“This way,” he said, waving the light down a forgotten trail. They walked in silence for a long while before the brush of leaves began to clear, giving way to a meadow that grew thick with grasses that brushed Nick’s knees. Up ahead in the clearing was a small wooden building, little bigger than a shack. Its roof was caving in on one side, ivy climbing up the edges and spreading over the trim and forcing its way into the room between planks. The door sagged to the side, still holding intruders at bay with rusty hinges. The moon reflected off the glints of glass from the broken front window, the inside swallowing up any remnants of light.

“That’s what they want to rebuild?” Monroe hissed.

“It’s a historical landmark,” Nick whispered back.

“Yeah, a history of tetanus. They can put up a plaque made out of rusty nails for authenticity.” Monroe suddenly paused, taking long sniffs of the air. Nick waited patiently, well aware of how useful Monroe’s keen sense of smell could be, particularly when it was too dark to rely on his own sight.

“Well?” he finally asked.

Monroe was busy re-arranging his face into a series of odd expressions, ending with one final whuff. “Sorry,” he sneezed lightly and rubbed his nose. “Got a whiff of a lot of cinnamon.”

Nick’s hand went to his gun. “The cinomolgi?”

“Easy there, Tex, just cinnamon. The scent’s so strong though, it could be covering them up.” Nick looked at him and Monroe shrugged. “But I don’t think so.”

Nick let his hand drop, just in time to hear a loud caw and a flutter of wings. He barely ducked in time to miss razor-sharp talons aimed for his face. They glanced off of his head, leaving a long, bleeding gash on his cheek. Monroe was shouting something beside him. He ignored it, pulling his gun and scanning the skies. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds. Another loud call from his right, and he swung his gun around, aiming at the figure gliding silently toward him. He pulled off a shot and didn’t hear an answering scream.

The second dive caught his arm and he hissed, tucking it into his chest. Gritting his teeth, he aimed again and this time got lucky. The gigantic bird let out a pained cry and its flight faltered as gravity took over. It recovered before it hit the ground, but was slow enough for Nick to catch a glimpse of its face, angry and strikingly beautiful in its terrific fury, the smooth transition between skin and feathers on its arms, ending in the same wicked talons that had torn into his cheek.

The figure’s eyes glinted in the dim light, glaring at him, before the cinomolgus shot up into the sky and disappeared over the tops of the trees. Nick watched it go, still holding his gun at the ready, until it disappeared completely before helping Monroe up from where he had thrown himself.

“Well, _that_ was terrifying,” Monroe complained, brushing dirt off of his shirt. “What was that?”

“A cinomolgus,” Nick said absently, holstering his weapon and letting out a shaky exhale. He touched a hand to his cheek, pulling it away to find it covered in slick blood. It painted his hand black in the night’s dim light.

“I know that, genius,” Monroe said snappishly. “I meant why did it attack us?”

“We got too close,” Nick replied, still staring at the smears of blood slowly following the lines of his palm and crusting between his fingers.

“I guess that means something to you.”

“Yeah, it does,” Nick said, already pushing his way through the brush back to the car. “It means that I need to find out what Ava Spicer was doing the morning Kirk Lingers was killed.”


	6. Away in a Danger

“Mrs. Spicer, where were you the morning Kirk Lingers was killed?” Nick opened, staring at the woman. Her tidy, neat appearance looked rushed today, the make-up smudged around her face and chin, and her hair not as sleek pulled back into a careless bun. She was fidgeting, long fingers tapping a disjointed rhythm on the tabletop. She glanced at him, staring at the door nervously. Her face kept flickering into the same beak he had seen from last night before smoothing out into human features again.

“Mrs. Spicer?” he prompted.

“I was here,” she snapped. “You know that as well as I do, Detective Burkhardt.”

He pulled out the M.E.’s report. “Mr. Lingers was killed at 8:00 in the morning. Your husband was picked up at 5:30 and kept in custody until 11:30, when you logged into the station. Where were you then?”

She crossed her arms, shoulders hunched and too thin, her thin neck straining too prominently against her thin skin. Her eyes sharpened and narrowed. “I was waiting for my husband to come pick me up at the office before we went to visit my mother. I had to pick some files up from work and take care of some clients before we left. When he didn’t show up, I was worried. Your station called me at 9:00 or so to let me know and I spent that time trying to find a cab to come down here.”

“Is there a record of your cab trip?” Hank asked.

She shook her head. “No, I paid in cash and I didn’t keep the receipt.” She started in her chair and turned to glance at the door again before turning back to them. “How long is this going to take?”

“In a hurry to be someplace, Mrs. Spicer?” Hank asked casually. “I thought you were going to visit your mother.”

“There were some… complications,” she said hesitantly. “We weren’t expecting a police investigation to hold us up.”

Nick leaned back and surveyed her speculatively. She was angry, that much was obvious from the accusing glare she was throwing their way, but there was something else about her body language and manner, the tenseness in her shoulders and the stiffness of her posture. It was almost protective, or worried about someone or something. He watched her carefully. The constant flickering of her face was happening more rapidly now, as if the stress of whatever she was hiding was causing her control to waver. It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“Have you ever been to Forest Park, Mrs. Spicer?” he asked.

She tossed her head back, startled eyes catching his. He casually scratched at the bandages hidden beneath his shirt sleeve, where her talons had raked him. She stared at his hand, eyes wide in her pale face. Just as quickly, she smoothed her expression and shook her head.

“No,” she said firmly. “I haven’t the time to go hiking through miles of woods in the middle of nowhere.”

Nick knew she was lying, but something about her words niggled at him, sparking ideas setting alight something he had missed. He let Hank take over the questioning, running through the facts in his mind and feeling them lock into place. Miles of woods… He felt his body still as a jolt went through him as the last piece slid inside.

“COPD,” he murmured to himself. Hank cut whatever he was asking off short and stared at Nick.

“What?”

Nick looked at him intently. “Mr. Alcuse had COPD,” he said. “Ms. Gingrich said that he had gone out to the planned area for the reservation with volunteers, but there’s no way he could have made it through those trails with his condition. Dr. Harper said that even the slightest bit of exercise would have tired him out.”

Hank’s eyebrows jumped. “You think she was lying? But why?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” he said, jumping out of his seat. He opened the door and called Wu over, jerking a thumb toward Mrs. Spicer, who was staring at them anxiously. “Keep her here as long as you can.”

“No!” Mrs. Spicer cried out suddenly. She jumped up and rushed toward him, held back by Hank’s arm. “No, please, you can’t do this. I need to go, it’s almost--” She cut herself off abruptly, lips tight and pale.

“Almost?” Nick repeated.

“Please,” she pleaded, her voice thick with emotion. “Please, you have to let me go. I can’t—please.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Spicer, but unless there’s something you’d like to tell me, we’re keeping you here,” Nick said.

She stared at him for a moment, wavering in indecision, before flinging herself into the chair and bowing her head over her crossed arms. The detectives stared at her as she softly began sobbing. The sound was mournful, misery crawling up Nick’s spine and settling into an uncomfortable feeling deep in his chest, like skin pulled too tight and hot over a healing wound. They shut the door quietly behind them.

“We can’t keep her for much longer,” Wu cautioned. “Not unless you guys are charging her with something.”

“Not yet,” Nick said. “Just keep her as long as you can.”

“Will do,” Wu said in acknowledgement.

“In the meantime, let’s find our elf and ask her why she’s been so naughty,” Hank quipped.

“You get on that,” Nick said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m going to go check something out.”

“Okay,” Hank said uncertainly. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

“I got this.”

Hank nodded doubtfully, walking toward the desk to make some calls. “Alright. Just be careful.”

Nick didn’t bother saying anything in reply, just waved over his shoulder as he ducked out of the station to make a phone call.

“Do you have some sort of Grimm-sense that lets you know when I’m in the middle of something, or is that just your natural charming personality?” Monroe answered crankily.

Nick ignored him, glancing around to make sure there was no one listening. Everyone seemed pre-occupied with their own phones, absorbed in tapping away text messages or chatting loudly with their friends. He lowered his voice just in case, ducking into a small alcove used by smokers on their break. “Last night, you said you smelled cinnamon, but not the cinomolgi.”

“Yeah,” Monroe said slowly.

“So they’re different smells?”

“Definitely,” Monroe said. Nick could hear the faint sounds of him opening cupboards and rummaging around his silverware drawer. “The cinomolgi smell like birds, kind of musty, with just a faint scent of cinnamon from those teas and stuff they’re always drinking. This was pure cinnamon.”

“A lot of it?”

“Is this important?”

“Very,” Nick confirmed. “Was there a lot of the cinnamon around?”

The sounds stopped, as if Monroe were paused in thought. “Probably. Definitely more than your McCormick’s jar of spices, that’s for sure. It was enough that it overpowered the scent of that one that dive-bombed us.”

“Thank you,” Nick said quickly.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s this about?”

“Think about it,” Nick said, voice taut with excitement, “What do cinomolgi build their nests out of?”

Monroe was quiet for a second, then said in a disbelieving voice, “There’s a nest? They have a nest?”

“There must be, somewhere in the forest. Mrs. Spicer wasn’t trying to kill us, she was protecting her children.” All the little pieces that hadn’t been adding up suddenly fit into place. Mrs. Spicer’s body language, which had seemed so familiar to him while he was questioning her, wasn’t one of a person suspected of murder, but of a protective mother. She was trying to hide her young, not a guilty conscience.

“Whoa, so we just—wait, but how did you find it in the first place?”

“The woman who found the first body, Lisa Gingrich, told us about the preservation. My guess is she knew that the nest was there and sent me there hoping that I would be killed.”

“Or wouldn’t be,” Monroe pointed out. “Think about it. Even if you lived, which you did, your attention would be on your mama cinomolgus and not her.”

“Either way, it means that the nest is unprotected right now, and how much you want to bet that she’s going to be going after it?”

“I’m on it,” Monroe said.

Nick hesitated. “You don’t have to…”

“Please. You know how I said cinnamon birds are almost extinct? This could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.”

“Just be careful. I don’t know what she is, but if she killed the santas, I’m betting she’s not human.”

“Neither am I,” Monroe reminded him. There was a click as he hung up, and Nick stared at the phone for a moment before pocketing it. The light was already fading fast in the west, winter’s grasp making herself known in the minutes stolen from daytime, and it would be dark sooner than he liked. He stared at the sun disappearing behind the buildings before shaking himself and jogging back up the steps to the station. He found Hank pulling on his jacket, about to leave his desk.

“Any luck?”

Hank shook his head. “Nada. Some officers went by the address she gave us and no one was there—the place doesn’t even look like it’s been lived in. I put out an APB on her and a description of her vehicle. They’ll let us know if anything comes up. Anything on your end?”

“Dead end,” Nick said. “Go home and get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You, too,” Hank said.

Nick waited until he was gone before grabbing his keys and driving toward Forest Park, hoping he wasn’t too late.

 

He found Monroe waiting for him at the park entrance, pacing nervously.

“I think I found the nest,” he greeted Nick as soon as he pulled up. “It’s in that shack we saw where the reservation is supposed to be. I think something’s about to happen—the scent of cinnamon was actually stronger this time.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“There’s a man there, a cinomolgus. I kept to the edges so he couldn’t see me.”

“Good work,” Nick complimented him, already headed into the woods. Branches slapped against his arms and legs as he pushed his way through, following the evidence of Monroe’s trail. The ground was uneven under his feet and he kept stumbling, but pushed onward as fast as he could to the clearing. It had taken him longer to get here than he had thought, the sun long since pushed under the horizon. Only the knowledge that Monroe was watching over it had comforted him.

The clearing was the same as it had been when they had seen it last, the shack still half-crumpled in the middle, looking deserted. He shot a questioning look to Monroe.

“He’s still in there,” Monroe said after a moment. “Did you find the woman?”

“No, she was—”

Nick didn’t have a chance to finish the thought as something heavy slammed against him, pushing him to the ground. He hit with his shoulder, his head ricocheting against the ground and leaving him dazed. He heard the sound of a scuffle, then a low growl, and shook off his confusion to stand. Monroe was pinned to the ground by a bloated, green body, barely keeping its spindly arms from bringing a set of wicked claws to his face.

He drew his gun and aimed, shouting, “Freeze!”

The figure looked up and Nick recognized Lisa Gingrich’s features hidden among the hideous visage, nose flattened and small, more like the snout of an animal. Her eyes were glowing yellow in the darkness, nearly overshadowed by two thick brows that flew out from her face. She snarled and jumped up, moving quicker than his eye could follow.

“What the hell was that?” Monroe said, staring at Nick.

Nick helped him up, scanning the treefront. “That was whatever’s been killing the santas. I saw it in the books, but I couldn’t make out the name.”

A sudden feint to the left had Nick twisting just in time to catch her moving along the branches. He fired off a shot that echoed into the forest.

“We’ve got more company,” Monroe informed him. “Mr. Spicer just came out to see what’s going on.”

“Dammit,” said Nick. “We can’t risk him leaving the nest undefended. Can you distract her long enough for me to make it there?”

“Think so,” Monroe said, shaking his head until it morphed into the wolfish features of his true form. “I’ll meet you there.”

Nick nodded, waiting for a count of three before running toward the shack. Mr. Spicer saw him coming and retreated. He heard the sounds of a fight behind him and sent a brief hope up that Monroe would be fine. The shack loomed closer and he pushed his legs harder, ignoring the stitch that bloomed up in his side and the burning of his lungs catching gasps of too cold air. When he was a foot away he slid, skidding to a stop inside. Mr. Spicer was staring at him, backing up until he was in the corner, where Nick could see a delicate nest made out of cinnamon bark woven together in a complicated pattern. Nestled inside rested four fragile eggs.

“Please, please don’t hurt—”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Nick cut him off, leaning out the door. He shouted, “Monroe! Clear!” as loud as he could.

There was a sudden yelp and Nick feared the worst before he saw Monroe running toward the shack. The Grinch had vanished again, but the prickling of Nick’s senses told him that it wasn’t gone completely. Monroe made it to the door of the pitiful defense, bending over and leaning his hands on his knees as he gulped in air.

“What did you say this thing was?”

“I didn’t,” Nick said. “But it hates Christmas, green, and starts with a G, so—”

Monroe managed to hold up a finger and gave him a warning look. “If you say Grinch, I swear to God, I will never let you drink another beer in my house again.”

“Excuse me,” Mr. Spicer said in his high, reedy voice. “What’s going on?”

“We’re here to protect you and your young,” Nick said, not unkindly. “That thing wants to kill you and I’m pretty sure you know why.”

The sudden wash of surprise on Mr. Spicer’s face confirmed it. There was a sudden rustle of trees that carried easily over the empty meadow to their position. The Grinch was moving.

“I’ll go east,” Monroe said after he caught his breath, already headed in that direction.

Nick caught his sleeve, pulling him back without glancing at him, still searching the trees for any sign of life. “No! She’s trying to split us up and leave the nest undefended.”

“Well, what should we do?” Monroe said, sniffing the air. “I can’t catch a whiff of her, not with the cinnamon. Are we just going to wait?”

“Unless you’ve got any better ideas,” Nick said.

They heard Mr. Spicer moaning behind them, clucking softly to the eggs and letting out little caws of sadness. The woods seemed gloomier than they had the night before, a fog swirling in and dusting the evergreen branches gray with mist. Minutes crept past in a tense silence, waiting for the other’s move. Nick concentrated on breathing evenly; he could hear Monroe letting out heavy breaths beside him.

“We’ve got to do something,” Monroe hissed. “She can wait us out as long as it takes.”

He was right, Nick knew, and he cursed the fact that he couldn’t call for back-up. Her vengeance could last longer than their vigilance, and sooner or later, one of them would slip and leave an opening for her to attack. He didn’t know if he could hold her off, not while still protecting the nest and Mr. Spicer. He cursed under his breath.

“Do you think you can outrun her?” Nick asked Monroe.

“Maybe. She’s fast and I’m out of practice, but I should be able to,” Monroe replied with some consideration.

“Don’t attack, just feint toward the woods and circle around. Try to draw her out and I’ll see if I can get a shot off. Stay in the open so I can get a clear shot.”

“Got it,” Monroe said. He ducked out of the ramshackle building and sniffed the air, before sprinting toward the edge of the woods, still ghostly in the moonlit fog. There was a sudden blur of motion, then a streak of green as the Grinch rushed out from behind a thick copse of trees, headed toward him. Before Nick could squeeze the trigger, a loud screech broke through the air. He looked up, distracted by the sudden intrusion, and saw Monroe and the Grinch do the same.

A fierce bird, majestic in flight, swooped low over the Grinch, clawing at her head. The Grinch dove to the ground and rolled away, hissing and running toward the woods. Another screech like a falcon finding her prey, and the cinomolgus plunged downward again, this time scoring a hit judging by the fierce cry of pain from the Grinch. She disappeared into the woods again, holding her shoulder with one hand. The cinomolgus hovered at the edges, flapping her winged arms as she searched for a way through the dense knotting of forest. With a last bellowing call, she soared toward the shack, landing gracefully at the door front just as Monroe ran up, panting.

“Mrs. Spicer,” Nick said with some surprise.

She barely acknowledged him, rushing toward her husband and nest. “It’s time,” she said, her voice jumping like the uneven course of a bird in flight.

Before either Monroe or Nick could ask what she meant, they heard the sounds of cracking, weak at first, then gaining in strength. They watched as the eggs’ began breaking, wrinkles appearing on the outer surface, until a small, jagged piece finally hit the ground. The others followed, tiny beaks appearing and searching blindly toward the light. Mr. and Mrs. Spicer watched anxiously, their hands making nervous, butterfly motions in the air as they coaxed their young with empty gestures. Everyone held their breath until the first chick wobbled out, hitting the edges of the rough cinnamon nest and falling piteously there, cheeping in a strange tune.

They watched the hatchlings yawn and claw weakly at the air, twisting their frail, downy bodies this way and that. Mr. Spicer’s face was as proud as any new parent, that faint expression of awe in his eyes as if he just realized that the tiny new bodies of life moving was his, his to protect and keep and teach. Mrs. Spicer cooed over them, trilling short, soft songs to them and clutching them to her chest to keep warm.

Monroe leaned over and whispered in Nick’s ear, “Ugly little things, aren’t they?”

Nick nudged him hard in the ribs, fighting to keep off the grin that was threatening to erupt all over his face from breaking out completely.

Mr. Spicer broke off his reverent stare of his young and held out a hand to Nick, who took it and gave him a firm handshake.

“Congratulations,” he said.

Mr. Spicer beamed. “Thank you. We heard from some, uh, acquaintances, that you were different, but… thank you.”

“It’s not a problem,” Nick assured him.

Mrs. Spicer stopped her soothing melodies and Nick pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes when she looked up at him.

“We have to go,” she said. “She’ll be looking for us again. She’s already killed Stan for granting us this gift, and Mr. Lingers for protecting them. We can’t risk it, and their grandmother deserves to see them before she dies.”

She stood gracefully, walking over and pulling Nick into a hug, then giving an embarrassed Monroe another one for good measure. She looked over with a maternal smile at her children, who were already crying for their mother again, before taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you. We won’t see you again, but thank you for everything you have done for us.”

“We understand.”

“It’s more than that,” she said, staring at Nick intently. She grabbed his hands between her own. They felt cold and clammy against his skin. “We are the last of our kind. If anyone could understand that, it’s you.”

“I’m sorry?” Nick said, gray eyes wide in his pale face. “What do you—”

“We have to go now. I’m sorry,” she was already gathering her chicks, but she paused and locked eyes with Nick again. “Be careful, Grimm. There are those who would be the one to kill the last of the Grimms.”

“Aunt Marie said,” Nick faltered. The two birds gave him a last sad look, shaking their heads as if they were bound not to say more, then disappeared into the woods. Nick started to follow, but Monroe’s hand curled around his bicep stopped him.

“They’re right,” he said, shaking his head. “Following them now would only endanger their family.”

Nick knew he was right, just as he knew it was his duty both as a cop and as a Grimm, despite what the creature world thought of them, to protect those in need. Forcing them to delay so that he could ask questions about the cryptic message Mrs. Spicer had given him would be dangerous, both for him and the new family. It didn’t make it any easier to watch them disappear, only the faint lingering presence of cinnamon left behind. “I can’t be the last Grimm,” Nick said in a hushed voice. “Aunt Marie said there were others like us, like me, out there.”

Monroe looked away, acutely uncomfortable. “There have been rumors that several have died recently. Reapers on the move. I didn’t tell you because they could have been just that—rumors. Had your aunt contacted any before she passed away?”

“No,” Nick said, a sinking feeling deep in his stomach as he recalled Aunt Marie on her deathbed, saying that there weren’t many of them left, that she didn’t talk to the ones that were still out there. She might not have even known about the others. “She said she didn’t keep in touch.”

There was a quiet stillness, the sound of the forest dim and somehow far away, as Nick’s thoughts jumped and stalled. The rest of the world faded away and he was left standing alone on frozen muddy ground, a fog curling around his ankles and obscuring the trees into a foreboding mass. Monroe let him stand there a moment, a regretful spark in his eyes. He reached out as if to touch Nick’s shoulder, then dropped his arm beside his side and let it hang there. Nick cleared his throat, and the silent moment was broken. With a nudge, Monroe nodded toward the car and together they walked toward the road, both lost in their thoughts.

 

The inside of the Volkswagen felt cramped, all the thoughts and words neither of them were saying filling up the air between them. Nick shifted in his seat, resting his chin in his hand and one elbow leaning against the open window. Monroe had both hands clutched on the steering wheel and kept shooting worried looks his way before focusing on the road again. He briefly thought about telling him that he was fine before dismissing it and concentrating on the rush of deep green frondescence and swirls of gray as they drove past.

He had never given thought to contacting any of the Grimms, but it had been in the back of his mind at all times, that there were others out there like him, others like his Aunt Marie, who could guide him or help if he called. It was like the knowledge that back-up was a radio signal away. He rarely called for it on his job, but it was always there, a safety net in case things went wrong. Though Monroe was always willing to accompany him on his forays into the creature world, as a guide or sidekick, there were questions he couldn’t answer. Were Grimms even human? He could see things other, normal people couldn’t and he somehow doubted that was just a side effect of a finely tuned profiler’s mind. Why did some creatures recognize him immediately, while others didn’t seem to notice at all?

His reverie was broken by Monroe suddenly rumbling something lowly and the car sputtering to an abrupt stop. Nick caught himself on the dashboard and shot a questioning look at Monroe, who was sniffing out the window curiously.

“Timmy fall down the well again?” Nick guessed.

Monroe wrinkled his nose, but otherwise ignored the weak joke. “No, I smell something,” he sniffed again and jerked back. “Something foul.”

“There’s a sewer plant ten miles east,” Nick supplied.

“I know what sewage smells like, and this isn’t it. This is almost,” he hesitated, trying to place the scent, “sweet.”

“Sweet and foul?”

“Like peppermint and rotted fish.”

Nick winced just thinking about it. Sometimes he was glad he didn’t have Monroe’s finely tuned senses. “Do you recognize it?”

“I’ve smelled it before, if that’s what you mean,” said Monroe, his face lost in concentration. “I just can’t place it. It was fainter before, like it was covered up by something stronger.”

Nick looked at him, eyes wide. “Like cinnamon?”

Monroe stared at him.

“The Grinch,” they said in tandem. Monroe jerked the car back into gear as Nick pulled his seatbelt tight across his chest.

“Can you follow it?”

Monroe didn’t grace him with an answer, just leaned his head out the window as far as he could and steered the car one-handed, turning right or left onto backroads and forgotten streets, until they turned into the entrance of a small suburb. The sign at the front was once a neat brick with gold lettering that proclaimed, “Crumpit Hills”. The “u” had fallen off, and the rest had turned brassy with age. The bricks were covered with vines creeping up the edges, doing their best to crumble the mortar. They followed the deserted streets until Monroe stopped the car, turned it around, and parked in front of a run-down house with a neglected lawn and weeds growing thick along the crooked mailbox.

“This is it,” Monroe said, with one last whiff. “This is where the scent ends.”

Nick glanced at the address. “910 Euchariah Lane,” he read. He unbuckled his seat belt and glanced at Monroe. “Wait outside in case she tries to make a break for it.”

Monroe gave an affirmative nod as Nick got out of the car, looking over the house as he approached. The house looked abandoned from the street. The lights were all turned off and it was eerily quiet alongside the street, too far to even hear the sound of passing cars from the main road. Nick crept up to the door, gun held at the ready to his side. He tried the doorknob and the door swung open, creaking lightly. The inside was dark and he watched for signs of movement in the gloom. The house felt uncommonly cold, like a wet chill settling over him. He shivered and pushed the feeling aside. Going into a house by himself wasn’t ideal, but if Lisa Gingrich was here, she was gathering her things to flee. This would be his last chance.

He moved to the opposite of the doorway, swinging his gun in a wide arc as he scanned the room. The room was dark, oddly sparse of furniture, but piled high with boxes of wrapped gifts. They rose in haphazard towers around him. He heard a rustling from one of the backrooms and spun to face it. His elbow caught the edge of one of the pillars and sent the boxes cascading to the floor.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of motion and suddenly the transformed face of Lisa Gingrich was in front of him, tackling him to the ground. His gun went spinning across the floor as he wrestled her back. Her yellow teeth looked sharp and set in uneven rows like a shark’s mouth. Her hair was wild, tangled into a mat around her head, and her entire body was covered in a thick coarse green hair. She raised one hand, covered in scythe-like claws turned black with fungus. He pushed one hand against her shoulder and threw her off. Scrambling backward, he reached for his gun and was knocked off-balance again by a blow to his back. He rolled out of the way just before she scored the wood floor with her claws, leaving three ragged scratches behind.

“You’ve ruined it,” she hissed. “You’ve ruined everything!”

Nick adopted a fighting stance, feet apart, and arms held in front of him ready to dodge. His gaze darted toward the gun, lying unnoticed underneath a cheerful package tied with a red bow. He focused back on the Grinch.

“What did I ruin, Lisa?” he asked.

“It’s going to happen again. And again. Every year, the same old horrible thing! People being cheerful,” she spat out the last word, “and singing. All that _noise_ , nothing but _noise_ all the time!”

Nick circled warily, keeping her in his line of sight as she advanced with threatening steps. His back was nearly to the wall.

“Can’t stand a little music?” he taunted. He began humming under his breath, growing in strength until he was loudly belting out the lyrics of one of the few songs he remembered his mother singing to him on their last Christmas together. “Fahoo fores, dahoo dores, welcome Christmas, Christmas day!”

“Shut up!” Lisa screamed, her eyes glowing yellow with rage. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

She lunged at him. He ducked out of the way, hearing her hit the wall. She whirled on him just as he bent to pick up his gun, aiming it at her from a mid-crouch.

“There’s nowhere to go, Lisa,” he said evenly. “Just give yourself up and come quietly.”

With an incoherent snarl, she leapt toward the fireplace, crouching inside and hauling herself up the chimney using her claws as anchors. Nick jumped after her, ducking his head in and looking up into the narrow flue covered in black soot. The only sign of her was a few ashes that floated to the hearth and left faint smudges on the grey stone.

He ran outside, coming to a halt when he saw Monroe standing with the Grinch in a firm hold, keeping her claws well away from where they could do any danger. He stared.

“Lose something?” Monroe asked with a sardonic twist of his mouth. Lisa gave a little defeated wail, straining at Monroe's hold, and Monroe snarled a warning at her, shaking her for emphasis. Nick grinned at him and holstered his gun, pulling out a pair of handcuffs.

“Lisa Gingrich, you are under arrest for the murders of Mr. Stan Alcuse and Kirk Lingers. You have the right to remain silent…”


	7. Adeste Finales

“Lisa Gingrich, 29 years old, working as an elf at a mall Christmas display and killed Santa Clause’s as a hobby,” said Captain Renard as he stared at his two detectives. He bridged his hands together and leaned back in his chair, raising one sardonic eyebrow as he noted dryly, “Most people take up crossword puzzles.”

Nick tossed a folder onto the desk and talked while Renard skimmed the contents, including their reports, the lab analysis, search warrant, and a full confession by Ms. Gingrich. “We searched her house and found dozens of presents, still wrapped, all over the place. The manager of the mall, Mr. Spicer, had mentioned a charity event being hosted at the same time as the Christmasland display, and when we called to verify it, we confirmed that there was a discrepancy in their donation records.”

“She probably was stealing the presents hoping to resell them. The charity usually doesn’t run a full check on its donations until the end of the event. If we hadn’t called, they wouldn’t have noticed the discrepancy at all until January, and by then, she would have moved on from her seasonal position,” Hank explained.

Renard dropped the file into his inbox, apparently satisfied with what he had seen. “And the victims?”

“Mr. Alcuse apparently found out about the theft and was planning on reporting her. She confronted him, things got tense, and she killed him. Kirk Lingers was just a distraction to throw us off the trail, get us thinking it was a serial killer rather than a person motive,” Nick jumped in. It was all, more or less, strictly true, and Ms. Gingrich had grudgingly gone along with the version, apparently preferring prison to a stay at a mental ward for the criminally insane. To the human world, it seemed perfectly logical; only the creature world and Nick knew the truth.

“How’d she get into the break room?”

“Mr. Spicer verified that his key went missing a week or so before Mr. Alcuse was murdered. At the time, he thought he had misplaced it because it turned up again not long after, but it was plenty of time for Ms. Gingrich to have stolen it and had a copy made,” Hank explained.

“Good work, both of you,” Renard said as he picked up a pen and began signing paperwork. It was as good as a dismissal, and both Hank and Nick thanked him as they headed out of the office to their joined desks.

“Is it just me or have we been catching all the weird ones lately?” Hank said, shaking his head. “A serial killer who only kills people wearing red, rat raves…”

Nick grinned at him. “Just lucky I guess. But hey,” he said, clapping Hank on the shoulder, “we caught her and all’s well that ends well.”

“Yeah, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night,” Hank quipped. He collapsed into his desk, leaning back, and staring at the ceiling with a sigh. With a glance he looked at Nick. “So what are your plans for the next two days?”

“Relax,” Nick said firmly. “I plan on not leaving my sweatpants or the couch for the next two days. You should do the same.”

Hank waved him off as Nick left.

 

Monroe had a fire built, the air filled with crepitations from shifting logs and dull orange embers bursting in the air. The tree lights lit up with blinking red, green, blue, and yellow colors, reflecting off the shiny wood floor. They both sat on the couch, listening to the tinny toot of the train-set as it rattled down the tracks, whistling as it passed by the tiny village display.

“How’d you explain it at the station?” Monroe said, sipping his eggnog. Nick forewent the drink for a bottle of beer, and the warmth from his hand had made the condensation of the bottle slick under his hand. He wiped it off on his jeans absently as he took another sip.

“That she stole the presents for financial reasons,” Nick shrugged. “It made more sense than ‘she wanted to steal Christmas.’ “ He continued, “Mr. Spicer did me a favor and said that his break room key had been stolen so that it looked like she took it to get into the room.”

“What really happened?”

“I was thinking about this,” Nick said, leaning forward. “When I confronted her at the house, she disappeared through the chimney. Mr. Spicer was saying the only way other than the break room door was the ventilation shaft, but it was too small to get to. I looked at the blueprints and it looks about the same size as a chimney shaft.”

“Tight fit,” Monroe commented.

“Yeah, but it makes sense. She waits until they’re on break, sneaks in, kills him, opens the door from the inside so that it looks like only someone who had a key could do it, then sneaks out and ‘finds’ the body,” he said.

“Did she say why she did it?”

“Other than hating Christmas?” Nick shook his head. “No, not really. I guess she found out about the Spicer’s nest and couldn’t stand the thought of having a Christmas miracle happening right in front of her. Mr. Alcuse and Mr. Lingers were just part of that.”

“Tough break,” Monroe said.

“Yeah,” Nick sighed. They sat in silent contemplation the shifting flames, the smell of burning pine tickling at their noses and sending sprays of fresh scent into the entire house. Outside, the wind rattled at the windows, sending the icicle lights tapping against the side of the house and panes of glass. The weather reports had predicted sleet and Nick thought he could feel the wind blow colder as he headed over, sneaking in through the cracks and chilling him to the bone.

Monroe nudged him with his foot, jerking Nick out of his reverie.

“What are you so unhappy about? Bad guy's in jail, your boss is happy, what else is there?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Nick said uncertainly. He tugged at the label on his bottle of microbrew, peeling it off with a fingernail. He confessed, “I’ve just been thinking about what Mrs. Spicer said. About me being the last Grimm.”

Monroe made a face. He didn't press Nick for more, but didn’t interrupt either.

“It’s stupid,” Nick continued, “It’s not like I actually knew them or had plans to contact any of them, but it was still knowing that there was someone out there who I could talk to, figure out where I come from. When Aunt Marie died, she gave me her journals, but there’s nothing on who _we_ are. It’s all just profiles of creatures and—”

“How to kill them?” Monroe said dryly.

Nick winced. “Yeah.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Monroe said finally. “But you’re doing pretty well on your own.”

“I know,” Nick said. “But things have been weird lately. Even Hank’s noticed. All of my recent cases have had a creature involved, and I keep thinking about what Melissa Wincroft said before she died. Someone is coming, and I don’t know who it is, but she said it was a warning. Something’s happening, stirring people up.”

It felt like the first whispers of something big; the sky darkening, the wind picking up, the sudden drop in temperature before a storm hit and everyone smart was moving out of its path before it touched down. Nick had a strange feeling that he was somehow in the center of it. While everyone else headed home and battened the hatches, the animals howled and felt the change in weather somewhere deep in their blood, he was standing in the eye, looking up and only able to look at it from the inside and not identify what it was. He hoped it was just a bad feeling, but it felt more like a promise.

“Mrs. Spicer was right, you know,” Monroe interrupted his thoughts. “Maybe the uptick in weird crimes is because you’re the last of the Grimms. It’d be quite a coup to some people to kill you.”

Nick shook his head. “No, this feels like something different. Something bigger than that.”

“I can keep an ear to the ground,” Monroe said after a moment. “For anything weird. If that makes you feel any better.”

Nick gave him a grateful smile that he waved off. “That would be helpful.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it,” Monroe said. He added, “Really. To anyone. It’s bad enough I’m helping you occasionally, but if I become your full-time spy…”

“More like a confidential informant.”

“Still not great for my life expectancy,” Monroe said peevishly. “But for now, cheer up. It’s almost Christmas, you caught the bad guy, helped four new little guys get a start in life, and saved Christmas. I'd say you've done pretty good.”

Monroe tilted his glass of eggnog in salute. Nick smiled and reached over to clink the side of his beer bottle against the mug with a soft clinking of glass.

“I’ll drink to that.”


	8. Final Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of all the references and in-jokes. Contains spoilers for the fic!

IMPORTANT: This contains the ENDING OF THE STORY. If you want to be surprised or guess it yourself, read this AFTER you read the story.

Normally I don’t write these, but this went from being a somewhat cracky one-shot (I was originally planning on having Monroe make snide jokes about Dr. Seuss and refer to Nick as “Cindy Mim Grimm” while Nick threatened to shoot him if he kept it up) into a serious casefic. I already had another serious casefic planned, though they weren’t meant to coincide, until suddenly Mrs. Spicer dropped that bombshell and I realized they would dovetail nicely. Then that somehow turned into another story… and basically I have an entire trilogy set out in my mind.

I have to remind myself occasionally that I’m the same author who has written two bakery AU’s and a plethora of fluff, and somehow have ended up with this semi-epic storyline.

Oh well.

I hope you enjoyed the story, I hope you stick around for the sequels, and in case you were curious, I compiled a list of some of the in-jokes/references for this one:

1\. Stan A. Alcuse is an anagram of Santa Clause.

2\. Lisa Gingrich is the Grinch.

3\. The cinomolgus was documented by Herodotus. I just tweaked the source information for my own fannish purposes.

4\. _"You know how everyone asks, ‘But how can one guy deliver presents to the entire globe in one night!’, or if they’re smart, ‘How can one guy deliver presents to half the globe in one night!’?”_ \- Yeah, I know, but as a kid it always bugged me. I’m not sure why it was so much more plausible to me if you realized that it’s only night for _half_ the world, but there you go.

5\. "Corbin" means "crow"; "Ava" comes from _avis_ , meaning "bird". "Spicer", of course, is just a reference to cinnamon.

6\. Kirk Lingers is an anagram for Kris Kringle.

7\. Mr. Hu’s name is a pun on “Who”, as in “all the who’s down in Whoville”.

8\. _The hems of the sleeves were roughly stitched, like she had sewn them herself_ is a reference to the Grinch sewing his own costume in the animated film.

9\. _She sighed in frustration and leaned down to search through her purse, pulling out a package of toothpicks._ This is a tiny little thing, but I’m inordinately pleased with it. I had originally intended it just as a random throw-away joke to the scene where the Grinch is chewing on his toothpick, but it worked well with the fact she supposedly used to be a smoker.

10\. Karl Tineas is an anagram from Sinterklaas.

11\. "Crumpit Hills" is a reference to the Grinch's home on Mt. Crumpit in Whoville.

12\. "910 Euchariah Lane" is a reference to the 1977 prequel to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" called "Halloween is Grinch Night". Euchariah was the name of the main character.

13\. Mt. Cumpit was also 3,000 feet high--which translates to ~910 meters.

14\. I really wanted Ms. Gingrich to have a dog named Max which Nick or Eddie adopts, but it just didn’t fit into the story at all so I had to drop it.

15\. Yes, those are the lyrics to the Who song in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. If you go back, I added a bit to the fifth chapter in the “Christmas memories” scene where they’re talking about their family’s Christmas traditions about his mom making up songs and singing them to baby!Nick.


End file.
